The Howard-McHenry Mill was a relatively small-scale
commercial enterprise that was established by a farmer named Cornelius
Howard Jr. in the late 18th century. Howard’s father had been the
first surveyor of Baltimore County and the Howard family owned several
parcels of land in the Pikesville area by the time Cornelius Howard Jr.
established himself as a prominent farmer who earned money raising livestock
and renting slaves out for their labor. After Howard’s death in
1844, the mill went to his great nephew James Howard McHenry, another
prominent farmer who had a great interest in incorporating the new inventions
of the industrial age into his home and farm life. There is no further
record of the mill after McHenry’s 1888 death.

The occupants of the Howard McHenry Mill site
were a series of tenants of whom little is known other than a
few names. The first tenants were probably the Marsh family, since
Nathaniel Marsh is listed as a tenant in a 1798 account, and a
Nelly Marsh was credited on the mill account in April 1813. In
September 1813, Cornelius Howard’s account books recorded
the transfer of the tenancy to a William How. Although the mill
continued to appear in Howard’s account book in terms of
livestock born or killed there, no more mention was made of the
names of tenants until after he died and McHenry took over the
operation. In 1856, a Jacob Hyland rented the farm, but Aquilla
Parrish was also associated with the mill in some way, and he
may have been a tenant. By 1877, R.N. Weller was listed on a map
as the occupant of the property, but by that time the mill was
referred to as “old g. mill” and it may not have been
operating any longer. In 1898 neither the mill nor farm structures
appeared on the parcel on the Bromley Atlas map, indicating that
the site was probably not in use anymore.

Archaeology

A Phase I archaeological survey identified the
Howard-McHenry Mill site in 1973. Phase II investigations conducted
by the Maryland Geological Survey followed in 1981 and 1982. The
Phase II evaluation included recordation of features evident on
the surface and the hand excavation of 344 shovel test pits, six
1 x 1 meter units, one 1 x 2 meter unit, and one 3 x .5-meter
trench. Soil chemical analysis was conducted during the shovel
test survey to look for evidence of specific activity areas. Mechanical
stripping was then employed to expose features, and these features
were sampled.
The Phase II study identified the flour mill and its associated
mill race, tail race, and stone weir, as well as domestic structures
associated with a farm, including two dwellings, a dairy, a stable,
and fences. The resulting artifact assemblage consists of over
13,300 artifacts which are primarily associated with the domestic
activities of the tenants at the mill site. Phase II excavations
were considered sufficient recovery of the site when it was threatened
by construction of a highway interchange, so no Phase III took
place.